GW2: Fire Elementalist PvE Build

More and more players are using the Elementalist profession in GW2, and tend to make their builds all about Earth or Air magic for leveling in PvE. However we have found that Fire magic is usually the better choice. In today’s build we construct a strong Elementalist focusing primarily on Fire to get burns and bleeds maxed and also a bit in Earth magic to gain valuable defensive capabilities.

NOTE: The image above represents the final outcome of this build at level 80. This is what you are going to be working toward. Down below we discuss what trait trees to fill out first, which weapons to use and which skills to grab as you are leveling your Elementalist via PvE.

Weaponry

The Ele is only capable of carrying one weapon set. This makes it seem like this class is limited but in reality the Elementalist has more weapon skills than any other class simply because you can alternate between the 4 elements and have an array of abilities at your disposal. For this build we elected to go with the Scepter and Focus weapon combination. This is because we wanted to focus the entirety of this build on Fire magic and these weapons provide great skills that inflict burning and flame damage.

Slot Skills to Use

Down below we have listed the skills we suggest to pick up for your healing, slot and elite skills. These can be played around with to further customize the build but the ones below are what we have found to work well with this Elementalist build.

Healing – Signet of Restoration (while passive this signet provides health each time you cast a spell, while active it provides a healthy dose of healing)

Video Overview

Trait Point Assignments

Where you assign your trait points is important for any build. Below we outline exactly where to put your points, when to fill out each trait tree and what skills you should be picking up along the way. Let’s get straight to it.

Fire Magic Tree

This is where we wanted to focus the most for this build since it is a Fire magic build. You’ll eventually want to have a full 30 points here. But for the sake of leveling we suggest adding points to this tree and the Earth magic tree 50/50 as you progress until they’re both filled up. Adding 30 points to Fire will give you +300 to your power and 30% longer duration for all condition based attacks.

Skill wise you’ll want to grab Lava Tomb (creates a lava-fire based attack whenever your player is downed), Ember’s Might (gives you a bonus of 5% damage to burning enemies, very useful for this build) and Pyromancer’s Alacrity (gives your fire skill charge up speeds a 20% boost). The other skills you unlock naturally in this tree are also helpful such as Flame Barrier (20% chance to inflict burning on enemies that use melee based attacks on you) and Burning Rage (gives an additional 5% bonus in damage to burning enemies).

Earth Magic Tree

The 2nd most important trait tree to fill up for the Elementalist is the Earth magic tree. Why? Because, unfortunately, the Ele isn’t given much health of defense out of the box. So, you need to ramp up your toughness to be able to survive for longer periods of time. Giving the Earth tree the full 30 points adds +300 to toughness and also gives a bonus 300 points to your condition damage.

The skills we chose in this tree are primarily for defense. Pick up Earth’s Embrace (provides you with additional armor when you get down to 50% health), Geomancer’s Alacrity (allows all Earth skills to recharge 20% faster) and the other skills you get naturally work in your favor as well such as Stone Flesh which adds toughness based on your level.

Water Magic Tree

Our final 10 points we decided to assign to the Water magic trait tree. This was simply to gain the extra 100 points for both healing and vitality. The Water attunement works well for healing abilities but we don’t use it much beyond that for this Elementalist build.

Recommended Armor

Because the Elementalist is one of the squishiest classes in GW2 you’ll want to ramp up your defense and healing more than anything with your armor and armor upgrade pieces. It’s best to find pieces that have Power, Toughness and Healing attributes. One of the best sets for this is armor with the “Cleric’s” name attached to it. It’s not insanely expensive and generally available for nearly any level so you should be able to get a full set at any point while leveling.